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wildlife photography

Tapachula ,Mexico

Please I need some advice . What would the best non-slr super zoom digital camera for taking wildlife photoes. I need to take photoes of wild otters as part of research and some photoes may be at dawn and dusk, with maybe some low light conditions. I'm looking for a minimum of 400-500mm telephoto and prepared to buy a telephoto converter if available. So far I am inclining towards the Panasonic FZ30, Canon SIS or maybe the Fuji Fine Pix S9000(great for low light but no image stabilizer and lower telephoto capability.) . After reading conflictive reviews i'm even more undecided! What is noise exactly and is it really that bad on the FZ 30? My price range is between 400 and 600 dollars

I personally do quite a bit of wild life photography, and would suggest the Canon S2 IS. It is less bulky, has very good image quality and colours. If you have to carry it around quite a bit you would quickly appreciate the smaller size (atleast I do).

Another Ultra Zoom worth conisdering is the Panasonic FZ5, It has fast autofocus, and can produce nice images. It is also fairly compact.(Also consider the Panasonic FZ20)

With regards to the noise of the FZ30, it should not be much of a issue unless you plan to print images larger then 5 x 7. Noise is ummm, random flecks of colour in areas of what should be uniform colour. For a example of what noise looks like compare the ISO 80 photo with the ISO 400 photo from the FZ30 review.